What’s My Name Again?

A few Weeks ago, I created a new Dwarf Hunter in LOTRO and started playing through the game from scratch. Why? Because I wanted to. As ever with MMOs that have been around for a while, all the best names are taken. I spent at least thirty minutes trying various names that I had planned in advance. All were conspicuous by their absence, including Burton, which really irked me. I remember having a similar experience trying to secure a suitable name during the WildStar beta. I wanted Brother Numpsay but it was not available, so I had to settle for Captain Queeg. I guess WildStar players are more conversant with Eddie Murphy than Herman Wouk. But I digress. I ended up calling my new Dwarf Hunter Gryg, as a homage to a character in the film The Last Starfighter.

Well to cut a long story I want to change the name. However, this come with a cost, as you would expect in a MMO with a hybrid free-to-play business model. In this case a rename token is 995 LOTRO points. That works out at a little over £10, which I thought was a little steep for correcting a minor nominative error. So as I had recently received my monthly stipend of 500 points, I foolishly decided to grind out the remaining 495 required to purchase the token. Man alive, was that a mistake. Grinding slayer deeds is exquisitely tiresome and time consuming. I eventually ended up switching to my primary level cap character and mopping up a few residual deeds to speed the process along.

Earlier today, I found that I had earned sufficient LOTRO points that I could go ahead and buy the rename token. Here’s a useful tip. As soon as you purchase the token, it immediately opens a rename window. I was expecting an item in my bag that was manually used. However regardless of this somewhat peremptory message, you do not have to use the rename immediately, especially if you are still considering names. You can cancel the window and access it again at a more convenient time from your Alerts window. So I logged out of the game, to start drafting a new list of prospective names. I also logged back in to make sure nothing screwed up, which it hasn’t. I like to be thorough.

Now as I’m a community orientated and socially inclined individual, I thought I would consider reader suggestions for Gryg’s new name, before making a final choice. So if you have any witty ideas, then feel free to leave a comment here or on Twitter. I’ll wait until the end of the week and see what sort of results we have. If a suitable name is suggested than I’ll use it and take screen captures to verify that it’s been implemented. As we’re all fully rounded grownups I don’t have to stipulate any caveats about offense, religion, racism or sexism, do I? No. Didn’t think so. Good. Then let us all put are thinking caps on and we’ll reconvene in four days’ time.